Why not horns?

Almarg, thank you for the history lesson; fascinating, and should be very interesting for those too young (or uninterested) to remember. You may also recall that it was Aczel who gave Fourier speakers some of their first positive reviews. It was then revealed that Aczel was one of the owners of the company. Hmmm. What that says about the integrity of the reviews (and the reviewer; at least, at that point in his career) is fairly obvious. What it it says about Aczel's sudden change of opinion (and it's motivation) about the sound of amplifiers I find far more interesting and mysterious; and, I know you are too much of a gentleman to surmise. I am not nearly as much of a gentleman, and am still ruminating the possibilities ....

Interesting read this thread, particularly the last part concerning reviewers and their motivations. While Harry Pearson may have been a guiding beacon to many readers of TAS he never was to me. More a pompous know it all although I occasionally was amused by his writing style. In the context of the history of subjective review and reviewers I always felt more drawn towards JGH and what I perceived in him a real integrity in his often attempts to correlate measurements with what he heard. Don't know if anyone recalls in the mid/late 80's when there was a blind listening session performed with the reviewers of the magazine when the ARC SP-9 was compared to the SP-11. JGH was the ONLY one of the reviewers that participated that could consistently hear the difference between the two. The thing about Gordon that seemed to ring true, to me at least, is that he didn't ever seem to have an agenda and that he reported what he heard and always attempted to be honest concerning that. He was my hero in that I felt I could trust what he heard and reported.

Frogman & Tubegroover, thanks for your comments. Yes, I recall the saga of the Fourier Systems speakers quite well.

In fact I auditioned the substantially redesigned second version of the Fourier I at Lyric's White Plains store in 1983, as I was shopping for speakers at the time. In Aczel's own words (Issue 10, published in 1987 following the long hiatus), the redesign addressed "some driver-related problems that had eluded our attention in the laboratory, [which] made its interface with certain rooms unpredictable." Shortly after the release of the initial version a generally negative review in "The Sensible Sound" (not exactly the most hyper-critical of audio review publications) had cited a "silvery spacey effect" created by its subsequently replaced tweeter. The mid-range driver was also replaced in the redesign.

The version I heard sounded generally ok during my fairly brief audition, but left me unexcited.

Aczel's lengthy recounting in Issue 10 of the Fourier saga and his involvement in the company is persuasively written, as might be expected, and if taken at face value would dispel any cynicism about it all. But who knows?

One thing is certain. Both the timing and the degree of his ideological metamorphosis were striking, and, as you indicated, fascinating and mysterious.

Best regards,
-- Al

"Mapman, I remember there was an Ohm model that got good reviews back in the early 80's in Stereophile and maybe TAS too."

I've seen Stereophile reviews of the first and second generation Walsh 5s. Stereophile review of gen 1 directly influenced gen 2 as I recall.

That's about it though. If TAS ever addressed any Walsh designs, I am not aware.

OHM is a more "blue collar" type brand that has never specifically targeted the "High End" buying community, TTBOMK but rather just let teh pecking order of things fall out naturally over time as determined by the consumers, not those in teh media who might assume ownership of what is or is not "high end".

In real instruments and voices are very direct to point out and very small in proportion. At shows you often hear that voices become bigger and less sharp focussed. I would never choose for this. It is less realistic.